


All That We See or Seem (Is But a Dream Within a Dream)

by DeliberateMisspelling



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Actually Maybe Worse, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, CAPSY in Some Spots, Canon-Typical Violence, Except Not Really!, For Real. A Lot of Swearing., Just Trust Me on This!, M/M, Major Character Death!, My Brain is a Scary Place to Live!, Oh Whoa the Angst, POV Alternating, Please Don't Kill Me, Please Mind the Archive Warnings!, Really Nobody Dies!, Seriously!, Sleep Deprivation Sort of, Swearing, Triggers, Triggers for All the Things!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-26
Updated: 2013-03-26
Packaged: 2017-12-06 13:28:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/736215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeliberateMisspelling/pseuds/DeliberateMisspelling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles and Derek can't sleep. Well. They can, but things go really, really poorly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All That We See or Seem (Is But a Dream Within a Dream)

**Author's Note:**

> Okay. So I am not dipping my toes in this fandom as much as I am cannonballing into the deep end and hoping not to capsize anyone. This fic turned into a serious monster all by itself. Whoops. And when you put it next to the one series I have up here in Suits fandom, I start to look really scary. I'm not. I swear. Total teddy bear. I just have a deviant brain.
> 
> I have done some preeetty serious hand-waving of certain things. Basically I just picked and chose what plot points I felt like following. I am a jerk like that. It's pretty much S2 compliant... except not, where I decided no.
> 
> I really hope I don't upset anyone with this fic, and if you are squeamish or trigger-sensitive I might suggest having someone pre-read it for you, or skipping it all together. If I haven't archived or tagged this properly, in your opinion, please let me know. To the Teen Wolf fandom at large: Profuse apologies if I offend you in any way. I tend to do that without meaning to.
> 
> Title comes from the Edgar Allan Poe poem "A Dream Within a Dream."  
> This story is un'betad, but it did take me like a month to write piece by piece so I think I caught most of my mistakes. If you spot one, feel free to let me know!
> 
> So yeah. I'm really sorry. But I regret nothing.  
> I'll just be over here. Bracing myself for the torches and pitchforks.

Stiles wakes up in a pile of leaves, which is weird, because he’s pretty sure he fell asleep in his bed. Or in his desk chair. Or perhaps curled on the floor in front of his dresser. Regardless, Stiles is like 99% sure he passed out in his room somewhere in the vicinity of 3 a.m. after a marathon research session that started with scouring for information about the power dynamic of Alpha packs and ended with... well Stiles isn’t really sure, but it doesn’t really matter now because he _woke up in the woods._

It’s still dark out, or it’s dark out again and Stiles is missing about twelve hours of time. He decides immediately not to consider that terrifying possibility yet, and sticks to wiggling his fingers and toes in a cautious search for injuries. He’s learned the hard way that when you regain consciousness in a strange place, it isn’t the best idea to automatically try to leap to your feet.

Nothing feels broken. In fact, Stiles would venture that he feels pretty good considering there are bits of leaves and a fairly liberal coating of dirt covering him. He stretches, spine cracking as he swings his arms above his head and groans softly.

The anguished, distinctive roar that sounds from somewhere on his left cuts his satisfaction off immediately. Stiles scrambles to his feet, trying and failing to calm the sudden, rapid uptick in his heartbeat. He has been up close and personal with that sound on several occasions, and although he’s never heard it sound quite so desperate before he identifies it without hesitation:  Derek. Derek in _serious trouble._

Stiles creeps towards the noise as quickly as he dares, patting down his pockets for his phone. They’re empty, and he curses loudly and vigorously in his head as human voices come into focus.

“I considered setting you on fire,” A wry female voice intones, “I’m sure Lydia would’ve mixed up a few Molotovs for me, if I’d asked.”

Stiles’ heart jams itself further up his throat at the mention of Lydia’s name, because now he can identify the voice that’s speaking:  Allison.

“But,” Allison continues, “Why should you get to die like your family did? You don’t deserve to be any closer to them. Besides,” she laughs tinklingly, “That kind of poetic justice is a little _too_ on the nose.”

The clearing Stiles is edging up to is ringed with hunters armed with a frankly alarming assortment of  weaponry. Derek hangs by his wrists on the far side, and if the burns ringing his skin are anything to go by, they’ve strung him up using wolfsbane woven rope. Stiles’ stomach lurches at the thought that it looks disturbingly like a lynching.

He almost retches when he realizes that it looks like a lynching because it _is one._

Derek is growling, a low consistent rumble that would be threatening if he weren’t currently hanging from a tree with Allison and Chris Argent standing in front him looking unrepentantly murderous.

“It was easy, you know,” Allison continues to speak over the vibrations Derek is emitting, crossbow hanging casually at her side. Stiles’ hadn’t pegged her as the type to monologue, but he supposes finding out your mother essentially gutted herself in your bedroom does things to a person, “One phone call,” her voice goes high pitched, a mocking intimation of panic, “‘They have him, Derek. The Alphas! They took _Stiles_.’”

Allison laughs darkly, and Stiles has to brace himself on the nearest tree trunk to keep the wave of guilt that swamps over him from literally bringing him to his knees.

“Your white knight complex would be almost impressive if it weren’t so fucking tragic,” Allison sighs, “Especially since it’s all going to come to naught.”

She gestures at her father, and for the first time Stiles’ eyes fall on the biggest goddamn broadsword he’s ever seen, including the ones in Skyrim, clutched deftly in Chris Argent’s hand.

Stiles is startlingly, achingly aware of what’s about to happen. He wants to look away, he wants to _run_ , but he can’t bring himself to. If he could move his feet, he’d throw himself into the clearing, consequences be damned. Instead he’s stuck leaning against a tree, watching Chris swing the sword experimentally.

Stiles has a sudden flash of memory, the night Derek and his pack had tried to kill Lydia, and he had told Allison in no uncertain terms that she should definitely, definitely shoot Derek. The leaden guilt in his stomach burns up through his chest to his throat and comes out of his mouth in words that aren’t audible to his own ears.

_“I’m sorry.”_

Stiles can’t hear himself speak, but Derek seems to catch it because his eyes snap towards where Stiles is still hidden in the shadows at the edge of the clearing. The rumbling still coming from deep in Derek’s chest takes on a regretful, demanding edge.

Derek wants Stiles gone. Long gone, but Stiles feet are still rooted towards the forest floor. Nobody in the apparently oblivious group of hunters takes any notice of the change in Derek’s demeanor, save Allison, who seems to think her words are having some effect on the werewolf hanging in front of her.

“I decided against setting you on fire, Derek,” she begins again, apparently finally coming around to her original point. Stiles wishes hopelessly that she’ll ramble forever, “Because if a sword is good enough for my mother, it’s a goddamn honor for you.”

Allison glances at her father to meet his searching gaze and nods her head once, sharply.

“Do it,” she hisses.

Chris Argent hefts the sword and with one smooth, almost effortless stroke, he buries it into the flesh at Derek’s waist. It slices cleanly through, bringing an abrupt end to the growl Derek hadn’t ceased making.

Stiles sways, bark biting into his palms and his cheek as he wills himself to close his eyes, to swallow back the bile rising in his throat, to force air into the lungs that have resolutely refused to draw breath since a spray of blood splashed across Allison’s triumphant face while she watched her father _cut Derek in half._

Stiles doesn’t know how he isn’t screaming, but he isn’t. He is deathly silent, and he can’t look away from the scene in front of him as the hunters encircling the clearing start to move forward.

“Leave him,” Allison snaps at the burly middle aged man drawing a knife to cut Derek down. Or, what’s left of him. Stiles bites back a hysterical laugh, because he knows once he starts he won’t stop until he’s sobbing and screaming and somebody’s calling 911 to haul him off to the loony bin, which is where he is officially sure he belongs, “As a warning to the rest of his little _pack._ We’ll come back for them soon enough.”

Stiles was positive ten seconds ago that he would never be surprised again in his life, but Allison’s blasé attitude towards murdering her classmates steals away the breathe he’d managed to hiccup into his lungs.

He wonders vaguely if she’ll finish what her mother started, if Scott is on the list.

He wonders if he is.

Probably.

The hunters’ exit is swift. They disappear nearly silently into the woods on the far side of the clearing, marching past Derek like he isn’t still hanging there like some kind of demented Christmas ornament.

The moment he can’t hear them anymore, Stiles can move his feet. He stumbles forward into the moonlight, keeps his eyes trained on Derek’s slack face and far above the gory mess on the ground.

“Oh fuck. Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck,” Stiles moans, moving past Derek to scramble up the tree and out onto the limb the rope’s been thrown over. He doesn’t have a knife, and the complicated knot around Derek’s wrists has drawn far too tight for his numb fingers to untie.

Stiles uses his teeth, gnawing determinedly at the fibers until they give way.

“Shit, shit, sorry,” Stiles fumbles back down to the ground, apologizing for the undignified ‘thump’ of Derek’s torso hitting the ground.

With his feet back on the hard packed dirt and strewn leaves of the forest floor, Stiles stands stock still for a moment, dazed and bracing himself. Finally he leans down, eyes fixed on Derek’s face again, and lifts the body from the ground.

He doesn’t know how he finds the Hale house. He just marches resolutely through the trees with Derek’s body in his arms until the burned-out wreck appears in front of him like a beacon of broken hope.

Stiles has to make two trips.             

He finds a shovel leaning against the remnants of the porch, and digs methodically. His arms start to burn when he’s barely begun, but he keeps going. He digs, and digs, and digs, until the hole Derek dug originally to let Laura rest with the whole of Derek’s shattered family reappears in the ground.

The sun is breaking over the trees when Stiles finishes flinging the dirt around for a second time, practically obscuring all of his efforts, but he’s not done. He spends most of the day searching the woods, collecting rocks of varying size and building a stockpile against the edge of the house.

The sun is setting again when he finishes laying them out in a massive spiral.

 

* * *

 

Stiles tracks blood and dirt into the entryway of the Argent house, but he is so past giving a shit about social niceties. In fact, he figures this might go a little smoother if he leaves Allison and Chris an easy trail to follow. He heads for the garage, and makes quick work of the steel mesh and padlock prison Chris uses to trap his cache of weapons with a set of bolt cutters.

He’s got a handgun loaded and waiting by his side with the safety off when he hears the cautious footsteps pacing down the hall.

“Who’s there?” Chris’s demanding voice calls, and the second his body follows the gun held in his outstretched hands around the corner, Stiles aims and fires.

Chris drops like a rock, and Allison screams shrilly. She forgets her training almost immediately, scrambling to her father’s side, and Stiles wants to laugh coldly at her.

So he does.

“ _Stiles?_ ” Allison’s tone is incredulous, but Stiles’ just shrugs.

“The one and only,” he grins wolfishly, and is gratified to see her throat tighten as she swallows hard.

“What- Why- _My **Dad,** Stiles!_” Allison cries, gesturing wildly at her father’s body as tears burn at the corners of her eyes.

For a split second, that gives Stiles pause. Of all the reactions he’d had to everything he’d seen and done tonight, crying had not been one of them.

“Derek bit your mother to save Scott’s life.” It isn’t a non sequitur, exactly, but Allison looks confused nonetheless.

“I don’t...” she starts, and then drifts off. It strikes Stiles as odd that she hasn’t made any kind of move for a weapon, but he figures she’s got at least a few hidden on her person already. He doesn’t intend to give her the chance to use them.

“Your mom. Was trying to kill Scott. For the terrible crime of _being desperately in love with you_. Derek _saved his life_. To do so, he was forced to bite your mom. Your psychotic murderer of a mother. So, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, I guess,” Stiles shrugs, the gun still trained on her head.

The Sheriff took Stiles to the gun range early and often. Stiles’ spasticity was an accidental gun death waiting to happen, and the Sheriff wasn’t taking any chances on Stiles not knowing exactly what the fuck he was doing with a firearm.

“I don’t know what you’re talking-” Allison is just a _terrible_ liar. Maybe even worse than Stiles himself.

“Shut up! I’m not hanging from a goddamn tree, Allison, so I don’t have to stand here and listen to your bullshit. I watched you and your family murder someone last night. I watched you take what you thought was justified revenge on someone who’s only ever done the things he had to, to protect _everyone_. Not himself, not the people closest to him, _everyone,_ Allison. Innocent people who have no idea that the Brothers Grimm were spot-fucking-on. Innocent people who had no idea that they were being used as _pawns_ to manipulate and _lead someone into their death_ ,” Stiles spits, “Although I suppose I’m not innocent anymore.”

He gestures at Chris Argent’s body and flashes her a leering, twisted smirk.

“Scott-” she starts.

Stiles fires a warning shot into the drywall beside her head, “You don’t get to talk about Scott. I know he’ll forgive you. Hell, he probably won’t even care that Derek’s dead except, you know, he’s the Alpha now. I’m sure he’ll thank you for that. Just more power he never wanted in the first place, so, great job on that one. And yes, I also know he’ll never forgive me because the two of you are star-crossed lovers and your smile rivals the sun and blah, blah, fucking blah. I am so sick of it. You’re no better than your mother, or your aunt, or your grandfather. Your father was the best of you, and that’s a pretty sad fact.”

So, Stiles is monologuing now. He doesn’t care. He’s earned it.

“I did what I had to do to protect-” Allison’s shock is wearing off and her anger is starting to flare. Stiles is running out of time.

“You used me to lure Derek into the woods to kill him. You were planning to murder the rest of his pack, and I do wonder if you included Scott and I in that. You had your father CUT HIM IN HALF AND YOU FUCKING SMILED WHILE YOU DID IT, ALLISON!” Stiles screams raggedly, and oh shit, the screaming has officially started.

“You’ve left this town open to the Alphas, because did you really think you’d be able to take them all down, too? You murdered the last, best chance Beacon Hills had in cold blood. I don’t care if my own father is the one to lock me up. I buried the body of my _friend_ in PIECES last night. What’s a little more blood?”

Stiles squeezes the trigger again, and he’s not aiming for the wall.  Allison slumps across her father’s chest and Stiles nods decisively.

He wipes the gun and the bolt cutters down with the sleeve of his hoodie before shuffling out of the house, scuffing his feet through the distinctive tread of his sneakers he’d left on his way in. The police, his father, will find Derek’s blood in the house, because Stiles has dripped it everywhere.

Derek’s really dead this time, so Stiles isn’t worried about blaming another couple of murders on him.

He shoves his clothes into a black trash bag when he gets home, and then shoves the bag underneath his bed. He’ll burn them out in the woods when he wakes up. For now, it’s all he can do to scrub himself raw under the hottest water his shower is capable of producing, and crawl into bed.

Tomorrow doesn’t concern him, particularly. Aftermath is something Stiles has learned he can handle.

 

* * *

 

Derek wakes up on the floor in the entryway of his house. He swallows down panic quickly, because he has to. Because he fell asleep curled on the seat of the empty train car. Fell asleep staring blankly at the yellow vinyl and now he’s looking at the structurally unsound grand staircase in the burned out shell of the house he grew up in. He wakes up in the wrong place, and he can’t freak the fuck out about it because he can’t afford to. Derek doesn’t even have time to.

He hears Stiles before he smells him, which is unusual. The Jeep is loud though: the muffler is going and he’s reluctant to tell Stiles such, since it will only result in whining and Stiles overpaying some under qualified mechanic for a shoddy repair.

He drags himself into a sitting position, legs folded awkwardly underneath himself as he listens to Stiles fling himself out of the Jeep and tromp towards the front door. Stiles smells frustrated and determined. Derek chokes back the knot that’s formed in his throat.

“DER-ek,” Stiles throws himself through the front door full of vim and vigor, which dies out immediately when he sees Derek crumpled on the floor.

“Are you all right?!” Stiles knees hit the floorboards in front of Derek as he reaches out and then retracts his hands before his fingers reach skin, extremities tucking themselves into a complicated formation that come to rest on his lap. He twitches, sucking back another aborted movement towards reassuring himself that Derek is fine.

“I’m fine,” Derek grunts, unfurling himself with a grace that is just genuinely unfair, supernatural abilities aside.

Stiles maintains his position on the floor, though his hands clench and unclench into and out of useless fists.

“Why are you here?” Derek prompts, and that spurs Stiles into genuine movement. He lurches to his feet, the frustrated determination swamping his features as he straightens himself.

“I don’t get you!” Stiles announces, poking Derek roughly in the chest. Derek doesn’t flinch, instead opting to arch his eyebrows in a semblance of incredulousness. He stays quiet, and Stiles launches forward, heedless of the latent danger.

“You! You, you, with the brooding and the distant looks, and the sweetness hidden close to your bones that you don’t show anybody but me, so maybe it isn’t real, maybe it’s just projection but I think I know it! I see-” Stiles breaks off, and then draws in a deep breath when Derek doesn’t interject, “I see a lot of things. I see that you and the pack need Scott and me. I see that Scott needs you and the pack and me, even though he’ll only admit to the last part. I see that nothing will ever get better until we stop working at aligned cross purposes...” Stiles fades out again, but Derek still stays silent.

Stiles probably sees that he’s afraid to break the moment.

Derek shouldn’t be afraid. Derek doesn’t spook easily. He feels loose in a way that he shouldn’t, but he’s too distracted by Stiles to think too hard about it.

“Nobody communicates!” Stiles burst out, “You’d think in the age of smart phones and Facebook that no one would be out the loop, but we’re all missing something! You withhold information that you think the rest of us aren’t worthy of, and Scott doesn’t trust you enough to tell you things and when he swears me to secrecy, I _have to_ keep it secret because he’s my _best friend_. And Erica and Boyd and Isaac all hero-worship you too much to ever question you, even though they _should_ , because you’re an _idiot._ We all face a common enemy, but we’re too busy bickering amongst ourselves to do anything about it! You have to trust us, Derek. You have to trust _me._ ”

“A common enemy?” Derek queries, the first words he’s managed in nearly five minutes.

“The Alpha Pack, stupid!” Stiles exclaims, and a flash of nervous passes over his features before he buries it.

“Stiles,” Derek drags a hand through his hair, “I’m not sweet. Not anywhere in me.”

Because of course that’s the piece of Stiles’ rambling that stuck like a barb. It’s not that he didn’t hear the rest, and it’s not that Stiles isn’t mostly right. Because he is, mostly right. It’s just that the idea of sweetness? It’s the only part that doesn’t any make sense to Derek.

Derek isn’t sure why he admitted that out loud. Stiles takes it in stride.

“Yes,” he breathes, “You are. You _care._ And you _hate it_ , that you care, because it’s dangerous.”

It’s not just dangerous, it’s weakness. There is a subtle and important difference when you’re playing at life and death stakes.

“It doesn’t make you weak, Derek,” Stiles continues without pausing, and _shit._ Stiles shouldn’t be able to just _say things_ like that, like they’re true and he’s never considered the idea that they might not be.

“Derek,” Stiles sighs, and this time he doesn’t cut his movement short. He grasps Derek’s wrist gently, “It’s _okay._ ”

It isn’t, because Derek should not be doing this. There are a dozen reasons why this is the worst thing Derek has ever done, but God. _Stiles._

Stiles, who cares wholly without forethought. Stiles, who sees six moves ahead of everyone else without realizing what that advantage means. Stiles, who is so painfully young. Stiles, who is so _old_ that sometimes it makes Derek shudder.

Shudder like he does now, at Stiles fingers on his wrist, on the inside of his forearm, grazing up his bicep and coming to rest, flat palmed, over his heart.

Derek gives in. He wouldn’t, usually. He’s stronger than that, than this, than _Stiles_. But there’s something fuzzy like white noise blocking out his better self, so the fingers of one hand slide over the knuckles of hand Stiles is resting against his chest, and the other grazes against Stiles’ cheek and comes to rest cupping the back of Stiles’ head.

Derek nestles the pads of his fingertips into the short, silky hair at the base of Stiles’ skull and draws him in.

Stiles kisses Derek like he’s drowning. He’s over-eager and warm and _nice._ Simple and easy in a puzzle pieces kind of way. Stiles’ limbs flail for a moment and then come to rest, his wrists locking together behind Derek’s neck.

“Stiles,” Derek heaves as he yanks their mouths apart, because he has _some_ sense of self preservation left.

“Nope,” Stiles grins lackadaisically, “This is happening now.”

His fingers drag upward first, scritching at the back of Derek’s head before flowing down to sweep a gentle, repetitive gesture over the curve of Derek’s lower back.

Derek is perfectly aware of all the reasons why _no._ But then Stiles cants his hips forward and up into Derek’s, and he forgets. Instead he guides Stiles carefully, bearing most of his lean weight, over the unsound parts of the staircase and into the bedroom that was wholly Derek’s before his whole world burned down and he started sharing it with ghosts.

Clothes vanish without a second thought and they collapse onto the mattress sans box spring or frame that Derek calls a bed on the nights he can’t sleep anywhere else.

Stiles does not care, in a situational sense. The sheets are clean, and Derek smells like pine and leather and clean mountain air.

Derek cares too much, but Stiles lack of judgment makes him forget. Stiles smells like safety, and Derek _will not_ examine it.

 

* * *

 

The moment that Stiles curls into him fearlessly, draping an arm over his waist and settling in for the night, Derek remembers all the reasons why _no._ Because Stiles _is_ so painfully young. Because he’s human, for all the strengths and weaknesses humanity offers. Because Derek _isn’t_ human, and he doesn’t even know what that would be like, really.  For all Stiles’ bravado that isn’t exactly false, he is lonely and he doesn’t want the only conceivable thing that Derek can really give him. Because Derek can’t offer him anything except the Bite. Stiles already has Pack, and the fact that he’s nestled in Derek’s bed tells Derek that Pack isn’t enough for Stiles. Derek _can’t_ give him anything else.

Derek remembers Kate, and his mind draws parallels that he can’t write off, and it doesn’t even matter that throwing Stiles out is essentially completing the simile. His reasons are far less destructive. Derek isn’t Kate, he knows he’s not, not really, and this is for Stiles’ own good.

“Stiles,” Derek murmurs, and Stiles stiffens.

“ _No_ ,” Stiles whispers, like he expected it. That hurts more than Derek thinks it should, in places he didn’t know could still hurt.

 “Stiles,” Derek repeats, stronger this time, “This can’t happen.”

“It already did,” Stiles counters, a dangerous edge to his tone.

“It can’t happen _again_ ,” Derek clarifies, and is hauling himself out his own bed to clamber back into his clothes avoiding the accusation in Stiles’ eyes as he goes.

“Don’t be here when I get back,” he adds before Stiles can burrow into his words and twist them into something he definitely said without meaning to mean it. Without waiting for a response he disappears out the window and bolts for the woods.

 

* * *

 

Derek expects Stiles to stop showing up.

As usual, Stiles defies all expectations. He refuses to stop coming to pack meetings. Refuses to stop researching any question, pressing or not. Refuses to stop pestering Scott into accepting the Pack, accepting Derek as his Alpha. Refuses to stop throwing himself headfirst into danger. He refuses to stop _helping._

He also refuses to speak to Derek, but that is probably for the best.

So when Derek senses Stiles meandering amongst the trees barely a quarter mile from the house, he doesn’t think anything of it. Devotes a sliver of his attention to making sure Stiles isn’t doing anything supremely dangerous, and refocuses on the wall he’s trying to tear out without damaging a load bearing beam.

He’s so worried about what’s left of the wall and ceiling collapsing that he senses the unfamiliar wolves encroaching on his territory ten seconds too late.

Derek gallops onto the scene just in time to see the lazy swipe of an Alpha paw rip through Stiles’ chest like so much tissue paper, and to hear the callous laughter of disappearing wolves echo in his ears

_Poor lonely little Hale, can’t even protect his human._

Stiles collapses into a puddle of plaid and gurgled screams and blood.

The howl that tears its way out of Derek’s chest is a sound he hasn’t made since the police and firefighters and EMS finally cleared away from the skeleton of his home, and left him alone with Laura.

He scoops Stiles out of the dirt and ignores the fact that even his senses can barely pick up Stiles’ heartbeat as he’s cradled against Derek’s chest.

 

* * *

A furious Scott catches up to him on the edge of the woods by the hospital.

“Derek!” Scott’s claws in his arm wrench him to a stop just before he leaps into the flood lights casting a glare through the entire parking lot.

“I have to-”

“You’re _naked_ ,” Derek hadn’t realized he’d shifted fully, “And covered in _his blood._ You’ve already cost him his life, the least I can do for him is make his dad think a friend found him.”

Derek can’t argue with any of that. In fact, he’s almost proud that Scott is more focused on what Stiles needs than ripping Derek’s throat out, at the moment. At the moment, Derek would let him. Instead, he passes Stiles over as carefully as he can, and watches with a clenched jaw as Scott races across the parking lot and through the automatic doors of the Emergency Room.

 

* * *

 

 

Derek climbs silently through the third floor hospital window twelve hours later. The Sheriff is passed out in a chair beside Stiles’ bed, sheer exhaustion the only reason he’s managed to nestle into the comfort of sleep.

He creeps up to the bed, trying to block out the sight of tubes snaking this way and that to enclose Stiles’ fragile form. Stiles is pale and drawn; the bandages and gown and sheets do nothing to obscure the vicious, fatal slashes dug into Stiles’ chest.

Derek can smell surgery and stitches and medication and desperate hope. He knows that none of these things matter:  Stiles is dying.

“I’m sorry,” he grits out, rocking his forehead against Stiles’ clammy brow, one hand caressing the side of Stiles’ head.

The sick thing is that Derek can picture  the lopsided grin Stiles would give him, if he could hear Derek. Or move any of his muscles of his own volition.

 _“Not your fault,”_ he’d say, _“Shouldn’t have been in the woods alone.”_

“It _is_ my fault,” Derek insists, because no one can hear him, “I let you get hurt.”

 _“You didn’t **let me** do anything,” _ Stiles would be indignant, _“Nobody **lets me** do anything. I make my own choices, and suffer my own consequences.”_

“I should’ve been there to protect you.”

Stiles would shrug _, “You can’t save everyone, Derek. You don’t have to. You tried, which is more than I can say about most people.”_

Derek doesn’t say anything to that. All he can think of lean, strong legs wrapped around his hips; slim, clever fingers scrabbling for purchase on his skin; pouty, eager lips laying searing kisses against his collarbone; the throaty keening sound as Stiles does his best to press every inch of himself against Derek like he hasn’t already dug his way into Derek’s chest and made himself at home there.

The hurt, resigned sound Derek tries to pretend he didn’t hear as he launched himself out the window.

Stiles would fill the silence Derek is leaving now regardless, because that’s what Stiles does.

 _“I’m sorry,” he would wheeze,_ and his earnestness is painful for all of its lack of actual existence.

“For _what?_ ” Derek hisses, because Stiles has nothing to be sorry for.

_“You’ve lost so many people, and you blame yourself for all of it. You’re going to blame yourself for me, even though it isn’t your fault. But, the loss of your family wasn’t your fault either, and you blame yourself for that too. I’m **sorry** , Derek, because you shouldn’t have to shoulder any more loss.”_

Derek has a lot of things to say to that, but all of them get lodged in his throat and instead he just tightens his grip in Stiles’ head, breathing raggedly.

He hears the Sheriff stir and shift in his sleep, a vague distraction off to the left. Panic grips Derek’s heart for a split second and he presses a rough, selfish kiss to Stiles’ lips before jettisoning himself out the window and back towards the trees. Derek is fully shifted before he hits the forest, and his strides eat up more ground than he thought possible.

He’s halfway through Nevada when it happens, and it doesn’t make a goddamn bit of difference because he can still hear it when that faint, thready heartbeat finally stops.

Derek keeps running, until his paws are bloody and the trees aren’t a species he knows, and he can do nothing more than collapse next to a brook that smells like pesticides to sleep in a place where Stiles Stilinski never existed.

 

* * *

 

Stiles’ wakes up in his own bed with Scott’s face looming over him, and for the second time in recorded history, he is _terrified_ of his own best friend.  Mostly because, for the second time in recorded history, he is positive Scott is going to kill him. The thin plastic of a trash bag will do nothing to cover the smell of blood, and Derek, and gunpowder, and Allison.

“He’s awake!” Scott bellows instead, throwing himself backwards into the desk chair he’d apparently dragged over from Stiles’ desk.

“Thank God,” Allison announces, strolling through Stiles’ bedroom door with a glass of water in her hand, “The Sheriff wasn’t gonna buy the ‘he overdid it on the Adderall and stayed up for three days before passing out’ excuse for much longer.”

She offers the glass of water to him, but all Stiles can do is scramble backwards, pressing himself against the wall at the head of his bed.

“Uh, Stiles, what-” Scott starts.

“What the fuck,” Stiles means for his interruption to be a shout, but his throat is so dry it comes out as more of a squeaky rasp. He swallows and tries again, “What the fuck, what the FUCK!”

Allison and Scott trade a look that says much the same thing, but Stiles does not care. Because Allison doesn’t trade looks with Scott anymore. Because Allison is DEAD. Because he SHOT HER.  He catapults off the bed, sending Scott and his desk chair ricocheting backwards as he stuffs himself half under his bed.

There’s no trash bag. No bloody, sweaty, dirty clothes. There is an fairly impressive collection of dust bunnies. Stiles makes a mental note to clean under here more often; maybe he’ll find something cool.

Like the lack of evidence of the murders he committed. Or that copy of _The Amazing Spider-Man_ #110 he’s been missing since 7 th grade.

Scott grasps him by the ankle and hauls him out from under the bed.

“Dude.” It’s all he has to say, a thoroughly bemused look on his face.

“I-” Stiles starts, and damn his mouth his dry. He reaches tentatively for the glass of water still in Allison’s hand. She gives it over silently, an appraising look on her face. He carefully avoids brushing their fingers together as he takes it.

“How long have I been out?” Stiles asks, his brain kicking in fits and starts as he attempts to figure out why there isn’t a bullet hole in Allison’s forehead.

“Two days, give or take,” Scott answers, “You really freaked us out, man. What happened?”

Stiles has no goddamn idea.

“I have no goddamn idea,” he admits, scrubbing a hand over his head and gulping the water down in attempt to buy some time.

“How’s,” Stiles coughs, trying to ignore the faint heat that creeps across his cheeks at the question he’s about to ask, because it’s only going to make them more confused, “How’s your dad, Allison?”

She stares at him for a long moment before blinking slowly.

“He’s... fine? He was fine when I left this morning. How’re _you_ , Stiles?” she queries, crouching down in front of him to press the back of her hand against his forehead. Stiles does his best not to flinch, but he doesn’t quite manage it. He guzzles at the water again to cover it, but of course that’s the moment the gears in his brain decide to interlock again. He sprays Allison with a mixture of water and saliva, and doesn’t feel the least bit bad about it.

“Stiles!” she tumbles backwards onto her butt as Stiles leaps to his feet and starts yanking off his pajamas, searching for a pair of jeans at the same time.

“Derek!” he shouts in return, forgoing his search for pants and yanking on the first shirt he lays his hands on instead, “Has anybody heard from Derek?”

“No,” Scott bites out darkly, “Why would we have?”

He’s wiping the water from Allison’s cheek with his thumb, glaring rather menacingly at Stiles. Allison looks distinctly nonplussed, staring at Stiles like she’s seen a ghost. He knows the feeling intimately, although he’s fairly certain the reasons for their mutual bewilderment are miles apart. Besides, he’s not being _that_ weird for him. Just slightly above average Stiles style insanity. Say that ten times fast.

“I- No reason!” Stiles strangles out, floundering into a pair of jeans and shoving his feet into his sneakers.

“Where are you going, Stiles, what the _shit_ , dude!” Scott calls after him as he careens out of his room and half leaps, half tumbles down the stairs.

“I’ll explain later! Thanks, guys!” Stiles yells as he swings out his front door and wrenches open the door of the Jeep. He will most definitely not explain later, because even though he didn’t _really_ do it, he doesn’t regret doing it, and Scott will not react well to Stiles’ lack of remorse for apparently dream-murdering dream-crazy Allison.

But he didn’t really kill Allison. So maybe Allison didn’t really kill Derek, and he intends to find out posthaste. The Jeeps tires squeal as he hauls out of the driveway and heads for the train depot.

Derek is waiting outside when he gets there, because of course Derek heard him coming. Erica, Isaac, and Boyd stare wonderingly from the doorway, looking disturbingly similar to Scott and Allison as Stiles throws the Jeep in park and comes barreling out of his still running vehicle to _launch_ himself at Derek. Who catches him easily, of course, and doesn’t seem surprised at all when Stiles’ hands shove themselves of their own volition underneath the soft cotton of his shirt to find the skin at his waist.

The skin at Derek’s waist, which is whole and undamaged and wonderfully solid.

“Fuck,” Stiles half-whimpers into Derek’s shoulder, “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

Derek’s got a death grip on Stiles shirt, both hands fisted into the material over his heart, and he’s staring down at Stiles like he was sure he’d never see him again.

“So this is really weird,” Erica calls from the doorway, earning herself a gentle cuff in the back of the head from Boyd.

“You’re all right,” Derek announces, like he’s unsure of it. Like he’s trying to convince himself.

“Y-yeah,” Stiles manages, forcing himself back a step and tucking his hands into his pockets, “Yeah, I’m good.”

Derek’s fingers uncurl from his shirt, hands dropping uselessly to his sides.

“You were-” Derek cuts himself off and looks away, and Stiles just nods, because he understands exactly.

“Yeah. You too.”

Derek looks up sharply at that, his eyes narrowing.

“Tell me,” he demands, and Stiles tries to. Thinks of a hundred different ways to start that story, but in the end he just _can’t_ , because Derek _isn’t_ dead, and really he’d prefer to just not think about it ever again, thanks.

“You tell me yours,” he counters instead. Derek opens his mouth, and then shuts it again immediately. He shakes his head almost imperceptibly, jaw clenched.

“Let’s not, then,” Stiles shrugs, and Derek nods tersely.

“Seriously, guys, what the hell?” Erica tries again, and this time Boyd doesn’t slap her, because he looks genuinely puzzled as well.

Derek half-turns to growl at them, but Stiles’ just grabs Derek’s arm and shakes his head.

“It’s a really, really long story, and we have to go talk to Deaton about it before we can even being to explain it,” he offers, tugging Derek towards the Jeep. He hadn’t realized the words were true until he said them, but they do have to talk to Deaton. Because two day comas complete with intensely realistic dreams about violent, gory deaths are distinctly outside the realm of “normal.” Even the totally bizarre, totally not normal situation Stiles’ lives in, where fairytale creatures are real.

The ride to Deaton’s is absolutely silent, and it’s the most comfortable silence Stiles has experienced in... ever. Because he spent the last two days in a new and frightening version of his own personal hell, and he knows without asking that Derek did too. So for once Derek’s stalwart, all-encompassing quiet beside him in the passenger seat is something like comforting.

 

* * *

 

He’s less comforted by the fact that Deaton has no answers for them. Stiles manages to explain as best he can without actually telling Deaton any of the more horrifying details, and Derek just grunts that yes, he experienced something frighteningly similar.

Deaton looks deeply concerned, and more than a little lost.

“I’ve never heard of anything like this before,” he admits, glancing between the two of them with a narrow, discerning expression on his face, “I’ll have to do some research.”

“You and me both, brother,” Stiles grins, clapping Deaton on the shoulder as he hops off the exam table, “You crack the ancient, creepy tomes and I’ll break out the Google-fu,” he jerks a thumb at Derek, “He’ll brood and throw the betas around ‘til he feels better. We all have our coping mechanisms.”

A growl starts to rumble low in Derek’s chest, and Stiles does not feel at all awkward about whacking him in the shoulder with the back of his hand and murmuring “Stop it.”

Deaton looks between them again, a spark of understanding that Stiles doesn’t like brightening his eyes.

“Well then! We’ll be off, I guess. Bye!” and he bolts for the Jeep because Deaton is a good dude, and he likes the guy well enough most of the time, but sometimes (read: all the time) he is far too perceptive for Stiles mental health.

Derek apparently feels the same way, because he’s less than a half a step behind. Or maybe he’s just not comfortable letting Stiles out of his sight just yet. Stiles can relate.

He shakes his head and laughs a little at himself as he climbs into the Jeep, because, let’s be real. This is Derek, and he, Stiles, is projecting. Derek cocks an eyebrow at him, but evidently decides not to actually ask when Stiles doesn’t offer up any information.

Derek climbs out of the Jeep without any hesitation when they arrive back at the train depot.

“I’ll, uhm, I’ll let you know if I find anything,” Stiles ventures, and receives a nod in return as Derek swings the door shut.

“Right then,” he mumbles to himself, and heads back to his house. Allison’s car is still in his driveway, meaning Scott and Allison are still there, because of course they are. He heaves a deep sigh before cutting the engine and walking mostly willingly into a conversation that promises to rival the Spanish Inquisition.

 

* * *

 

Stiles is pretty good at lying himself when he needs to be, but even he can’t convince himself that he’s totally confident about going back to sleep. He eyes his bed for a while, glancing between it and his computer screen as he tries to convince Google to tell him something about a situation he still doesn’t fully know how to explain, despite having to try twice in the span of two hours. His sheets manage to look both terrifying and innocuous at the same time, but somewhere around 4 a.m. innocuous wins out.  He crawls into bed, dragging his comforter over his head and willing the universe to let him wake up in the same place he fell asleep.

The universe apparently has other plans, because in what feels like the blink of an eye sunlight is cracking his eyelids from the wrong side of the room. More startling than that, however, is the heavy arm draped over his chest. Stiles squints his eyes open and determinedly does not look to the left to identify the body sleeping beside him and instead studies a room that _feels_ familiar, although he’s quite sure he’s never seen it before.

The walls are deep blue, hung with posters and broken by wide windows with white curtains. There are innumerable lacrosse trophies scattered on every available flat surface that isn’t already covered in books. The carpet is a warm beige, the matching bedroom set mahogany.  It’s a nice room, Stiles decides, he likes it. He likes it so much he almost forgets that he shouldn’t be in it until the sounds of people moving around below remind him that he should really be figuring out where he is.

Recognizing the arm slung across him as Derek’s clues him in. It doesn’t stop the moment of panic he has about waking up in a strange room, shirtless, and in bed next to _Derek_ though. In fact realizing where he is exacerbates his fear, because he’s in the Hale house. He just _knows_ it; he’s in a Hale house untouched by fire and death. He’s in what the Hale house should still be, and he knows he’s going to watch something horrific happen.

“Derek,” he murmurs, pushing at the arm, “Derek, wake up.”

Derek grunts sleepily, “Five more minutes.”

“Derek, c’mon dude, get up,” Stiles insists, struggling to get out of Derek’s grip. Derek huffs, cracking open one eye to peer at Stiles. A slow, broad grin creeps across his face, and it creeps Stiles out.

“Hey,” Derek mumbles, finally dragging his arm off Stiles’ chest to run his palm over Stiles’ hair, “Mornin’.”

Okay, so this has to be Dream-Derek. A Derek that grew up surrounded by his family and hasn’t dealt with an incomprehensible amount of loss. A Derek that knows how to show affection outside of glaring and slamming people into walls. Stiles can totally, totally handle this.

“Uhm, hey,” Stiles attempts a smile that he knows must come off as more a grimace, “This is gonna sound weird, but, I uh, I don’t think I am who you think I am.”

“What?” Derek’s eyes narrow. He’s fully awake now, and staring at Stiles like he’s a particularly complex Calculus equation. Stiles’ huffs.

“Derek, look at where we are right now,” he orders, putting more command into his voice than he would dare with the Derek he knows. Derek finally glances around, and a look of horrified hope crosses his features.

Okay, so maybe this isn’t Dream-Derek.

Weird.

Stiles doesn’t have time to consider it, because Derek is bolting out of bed and leaping down the staircase without actually touching a single step. Stiles scrambles after him, and then nearly runs into his back in the kitchen doorway because Derek has stopped dead to stare at the willowy, dark haired woman standing at the sink wrist deep in dishwater.

“Mom?” Derek croaks, and Stiles is immensely glad he can’t see Derek’s face right now.

“Good morning, sweetheart,” she smiles at them over her shoulder, and then emits of squeak of surprise when Derek crosses the kitchen in two giant steps and wraps her up in a bone crushing hug.

“Derek, honey,” she squirms slightly in his grasp, half-turning to fit more comfortably against him while she runs one hand down his back and makes a ‘what the Hell?’ gesture at Stiles over Derek’s shoulder with the other, “Is something wrong?”

Stiles Stilinski is at a loss for words. He can only shrug despondently at the surprised-pleased-confused-concerned look on Mrs. Hale’s face as she hugs her son. This, of course, makes her quirk an eyebrow at him, and that makes Stiles want to cry. Because that is Derek’s facial expression on _her_ features, so she knows him well enough to know it’s weird that he’s not babbling and what the fuck dream universes are so awful.

“Derek, in all seriousness, this is very sweet, but are you all right? I have dishes to finish and you promised Laura you’d-”

Derek’s head snaps up from where he’d pressed his face into the side of his mother’s neck.

“Laura?” The wonderment in Derek’s voice makes Stiles’ feel like he’s being actively gutted, “Where is she?”

“Outside, chopping wood. Which you promised to help her with,” Mrs. Hale explains slowly, concern starting to edge into her voice and across her face, “Has something happened?”

“You have no idea,” Stiles mumbles without thinking, and she looks at him sharply as Derek tears himself out of her arms and slams out the kitchen door.

“Stiles?” she prompts, like he’s going to have some kind of explanation.

“It’s nothing,” Stiles lies, and he knows she can tell, but he also knows it doesn’t matter because _she isn’t real._ He knows none of this is real, and Derek must know it too but he clearly doesn’t care. Stiles does. Stiles cares that it’s not real and that this is going to do more damage than anyone could feasibly deal with and he has to get Derek the hell out of here because he’d like his Sourwolf to still be _sane_ when they wake up for real.

The sound of Derek’s laughter echoing through the open kitchen door is enough to startle Stiles into action. He ignores the questioning sound Mrs. Hale makes as he darts out into the backyard to find Laura making vaguely threatening motions with an axe in Derek’s general direction, and Derek laughing at her.

With exactly zero regard for Laura, or the axe, Stiles latches onto Derek’s arm and starts to haul him towards the trees. He has no idea where they’re going to go, exactly, but he has to get Derek _away_.

“Stiles, quit it,” Derek grumbles, tugging his arm free.

“Derek, stop, _please!_ ” Stiles grapples for Derek’s wrist again, “You have to listen to me!”

The desperation in Stiles voice gives Derek pause. He tilts his head to one side and is downright Scott-like in his air of genuine confusion.

“What is it?” he prompts when Stiles doesn’t say anything.

“We can’t be here, Derek, you know that.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about:  this is my house.”

“It isn’t, Derek.”

“What the hell are you talking about, Stiles?” There’s anger in his voice now, and Stiles is treading on tenuous ground.

“It’s not _real_ , you know it’s not,” Stiles insists, and he wishes he could say he’s surprised when a flash of white hot pain explodes through his cheek where Derek’s fist connects with it.

“ _DEREK!_ ” Laura is scandalized and furious, leaping towards Derek with the axe still in her hand.

“It’s all right!” Stiles throws up the hand he’s not currently using to cradle his face. To his complete surprise, she pauses.

“Stiles?” she questions gently, though the look her face is still mutinous. He just shakes his head.

“’S’all right, Laura. I’m good. It’s just... don’t worry about it, okay? Please go back inside.” How the hell is Stiles supposed to explain this to someone that isn’t real? He can’t, he’s got enough on his plate what with the wrathful, disbelieving glare still on Derek’s face.

“Don’t fucking touch him again, Derek,” Laura snaps, winging the axe at her brother with such accuracy that it embeds itself at the dirt between his feet before she stomps back into the house muttering to herself.

“I’m sorry,” Derek grits out as the kitchen door crashes shut, “I shouldn’t have done that.”

“No, you shouldn’t have,” Stiles agrees, because goddamn his face hurts, “But we’ve got bigger problems. We have to _leave_ , Derek, right now.”

“No. I have them back, Stiles. I’m not leaving. You go, if you want, I don’t care. I’m staying,” Derek retorts, turning back towards the house.

“You CAN’T!” Stiles insists, “You can’t just _stay here_!”

“Well, why the fuck not?” Derek growls, and Stiles opens his mouth to tell him that he can’t stay because there’s a probably terrified pack waiting for both of them to wake up, because Stiles needs him to go back, because _something terrible is going to happen here_ , Stiles just knows it is, and he doesn’t want Derek to see it.

He doesn’t get a chance to say any of that because this a dream, and things just happen in dreams without explanation. He opens his mouth and is immediately cut off by the wall of heat that knocks him to the ground as the Hale house bursts into flames.

By the time Stiles staggers back to his feet Derek is wolfed out and doing his damndest to fight through the heat, the smoke, the _smell_ , to reach the house.

“No!” Stiles’ grasps the back of Derek’s tank top and tries to wrench him back, “It’s not fucking real, Derek, stop!”

“If it’s not real, then I’m not going to get hurt! Why shouldn’t I try?” Derek snarls, tearing Stiles’ fingers away from his clothes.

“Because you can’t save them! They’re not here for you to save, they’ve been gone for a decade! Houses don’t just spontaneously combust, Derek, _think!_ ”

Stiles knows Derek can’t hear  him over the screams coming from the house, so he just watches in abject horror. Watches Derek run without ever being able to get any closer, because stationary objects desperately pursued in dreams don’t ever stay stationary. Stiles watches, and he waits, until Derek howls the same howl Stiles heard the last time he was trapped in some godforsaken dreamscape:  anguished and frantic and defeated. Only, that Derek hadn’t been real. This one is, and crumbling to his knees with his claws buried in  his own thighs.

Stiles inches forward cautiously, but Derek doesn’t so much as flinch when Stiles’ hand comes to rest on his shoulder.

“C’mon,” Stiles whispers, tugging gently, “C’mon, let’s go.”

Derek gets to his feet, viciously shrugging off the hand still on his shoulder. Stiles doesn’t balk, just walks resolutely towards the trees. He can hear Derek shuffling behind him, lacking all his usual supernatural stealth and grace. Stiles doesn’t know where he’s going until they get there, and it takes a lot less time than it should. Stiles sends out a sarcastic, silent thanks for small favors. He leads Derek through the front door of his house, confident that his father won’t be there, because they’ve had enough awful flung at them today, right fake-verse?

Stiles turns on the shower and then leaves Derek alone in the bathroom, because there’s no way either of them are going to be able to sleep with the scents that are still clinging to Derek’s skin. He drops the biggest pair of pajama bottoms he can find outside the bathroom door, and then flops onto his bed and waits. He hears the water shut off, and a few moments later Derek doesn’t hesitate to crumple on the bed beside him.

Stiles tentatively cards his fingers through Derek’s damp hair, and waits some more. He waits until sickly grey morning light is peeking through his bedroom window before Derek finally speaks.

“How do we get out of here?” Derek growls, batting Stiles’ hand away from his head.

“I wish I knew. Go to sleep, Derek, it’ll be better when we wake up.”

Stiles falls asleep wondering if Derek can hear the lie.

 

* * *

 

Stiles wakes up alone in his bed, but he knows it’s only a matter of time. Ten minutes later Derek crashes through his open window.

“You lied to me,” Derek accuses, and Stiles is too tired to do anything but nod.

“Yup.”

“It’s not better.”

“Nope.”

“Is this real? Shit, I didn’t even like _Inception._ ”

Stiles chokes on a peel of laughter and bites his tongue, because they’ve apparently reached the morbid jokes stage of the game.

“Dunno, but it’s weird when you try to be funny on purpose. We could go out to the house and find out, if you’d like.”

“No,” Derek grunts harshly, falling into a seat in Stiles’ desk chair “Out of curiosity, how much Adderall do you think it would take for neither of us to ever sleep again?”

“Dunno,” Stiles repeats, “But I, for one, am going to try and find out. Won’t work on you, though. Do you think the power of brooding will be able to keep you awake forever?”

He sits up with a reckless grin, and Derek _freezes_ , eyes locked on Stiles face.

“What?” Stiles asks, alarmed.

“It wasn’t real,” Derek says, apropos of nothing.

“Right,” Stiles confirms.

“Then why does your face look like you got _punched by a werewolf_?” Derek hauls Stiles up by the collar of his shirt and shoves him in front of the mirror.

“Damn,” Stiles prods at the purple-nearly-black bruise covering most of the left side of his face.

“Quit it,” Derek slaps his hand down and sinks into as seat on the edge of Stiles’ bed, “Seriously, Stiles. How did this happen?”

Quite frankly, Stiles has no idea, but he has a feeling Derek won’t be satisfied with that so he ventures a guess.

“The situation isn’t real, right? But we’re real in it. So, anything we do to each other or ourselves really happens?” Stiles offers, crashing down beside him. The blank stare he gets in return is not comforting.

“Derek?” He pokes Derek in the chest with one finger, and to his intense amusement, Derek jumps.

“I- In the first one... We, I mean I, uhm, I-” Derek stammers, and never manages to actually say anything. Stiles decides he doesn’t want to know.

“Nope. I died in that one, remember? Wasn’t really me, so, whatever atrocious thing you did to me didn’t really happen.”

“Oh,” Derek coughs, “Right.”

“You should ask the betas if you bled in your sleep,” Stiles muses, and Derek stares blankly at him again.

“Well I’m sure you’re all healed, being you and all, but you clawed yourself up pretty good,” Stiles explains, and Derek nods vaguely.

“O-kay. Well, we should probably figure out how long we were out this time. Nobody was lurking around waiting for me when I woke up so hopefully not too long. Time seems to move at a pretty even pace in the real world versus nightmare-land, even though weird dream stuff happens there. I totally do not understand the structure of this ‘verse. I mean, the first time there was Dream-Derek, and then we to sleep in our respective spots and _boom_ , Real-Stiles and Real-Derek wake up in the same bizarro carnival of terror. So, what, the rules are fluid? I do not like the sound of that. Physics is inarguable for a reason. Who’s to say next time, if there is a next time and jeez I hope not, but next time what if I do something to Real-You thinking it’s Dream-You or you, you know, get pissed off and claw me cuz, duh, it’s a dream, only it’s not and holy _God_ , Derek, why are you not telling me to shut up?”

“I’m sorry, you were talking?” Derek raises an eyebrow.

“You’re not funny.”

“Yeah.”

They lapse into a thick silence while Stiles tries and fails to get Derek to look him in the eye.

“Are we going to talk about it?” he asks finally, nudging Derek’s knee with his own.

“No.”

“Ever?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

Stiles really wants to argue with that. Wants to remind Derek that he was _there_ , that he watched Derek relive something that nobody should have to go through in the first place, only this time they both got front row seats. He wants to snap that maybe Derek doesn’t want to talk about it, but Stiles does because he _met Derek’s mom._ He wants to talk about the fact that nobody blinked at Stiles being in the house, that Laura threw an _axe_ at Derek for hitting him. He wants to talk about the arm he woke up underneath, and the genuine grin on Derek’s face at finding Stiles in his bed, and the hand that rubbed over his head in a gesture that was just way too intimate, wants to point out that it was Real-Derek that did those things, not Dream-Derek, and that, that doesn’t make any sense _at all._

“All right,” he murmurs instead, knocking their knees together again.

 

* * *

 

Derek and brooding make it six days. Stiles and Adderall make it eight. Stiles would like to lord it over him forever, except that even with nearly 192 hours of uninterrupted research time, he still hasn’t found anything, and he hasn’t heard from Deaton. So he passes out in his desk chair with his face on the keyboard knowing full well Derek has been asleep for two days already, living through God knows what, and he’s probably going to be pissed when Stiles finally shows up.

If he wakes up in the same place.

Stupid nightmare ‘verse with it’s stupid indiscernible rules.

“ _Finally_ ,” Derek growls the second Stiles’ eyes pop open, snug in his own bed.

 “Good morning to you too, Sourwolf. What’s up?” He sits up with a luxurious stretch, looking expectantly at the werewolf perched in his desk chair. Derek glowers at him.

They’re in Stiles’ bedroom, and it looks exactly the same except not. Stiles can’t quite put his finger on it, but he’s sure the Treehouse of Horror will show him in due time.

“I think we should leave,” Derek says slowly, like the words are difficult to form, “And I think we should take the window.”

Stiles stares blankly at him for along moment.

“Why?” Stiles finally asks, his tone cautious.

“Well,” Derek stalls, “Last time we woke up in my house and bad things happened to... me. And... now we’re at your house. I think this one’s for you.”

“Then why are you here?” Stiles’ questions, because that is so obviously not the full story.

“I don’t know, why were you around last time?” Derek snaps, still avoiding Stiles’ eye.

“Okay, Shifty, what aren’t you telling me?” Stiles demands, and Derek grunts, one corner of his mouth twisted downwards.

“It’s just-” he starts.

“Boys?” A musical female voice calls from the base of the stairs, “You up? There’s pancakes.”

The panic attack hits Stiles with exactly no warning, but he’s bent at the waist with his nose brushing his blanket covered knees, sucking in short, harsh gasps and moaning “No, no, no, no” over and over in what feels like a split second.

“Stiles,” Derek offers in what he must think is a comforting tone, “Come on, don’t.”

Stiles just groans, locking his arms over his chest. His throat is raw and painfully tight, eyelids locked down, and the vice on his lungs won’t let up because his _mom_ is downstairs, yelling about fucking pancakes.

“Stiles,” strong fingers wrap around his ankle through his blanket, “She’s not real, okay? I’m real. I’m real, and I’m telling you if we’re gonna get out of here, you _have to calm down._ ” Derek orders, with just a hint of his Alpha voice thrown in for good measure.

Stiles’ focuses on the burning grip on his ankle, on the steady sound of Derek’s breathing, and slowly his own heart rate starts to drop.

“Okay,” he croaks after several long, silent minutes, “okay. Maybe the window wasn’t such a bad idea.”

Stiles swings out of bed, rummaging around in his dresser for some clean clothes that aren’t sweatpants when there are footsteps on the stairs.

“Stiles, honey,” Marilynn Stilinski sticks her head into Stiles’ bedroom without knocking, “Oh, you are up, good. Morning, Derek.” She nods, smiling beatifically at both of them, “Hurry up, before you father eats all the pancakes.”

The door slips closed again without her seeming to notice that Stiles is frozen with one leg halfway into a pair of jeans.

“Stiles,” he jumps at Derek’s voice, and the too-warm hand on his shoulder, “We, uhm. I live here? My family, they’re gone. But it happened more recently, and your parents they... took me in.”

“More recently as in the last time we were here. As in like... a week ago?” Stiles startles into motion again, buttoning his jeans and turning to search for a shirt.

“Yeah.”

“But you’re an adult,” Stiles protests, ignoring the frown Derek sends his way.

“Yeah, well, your mom likes me.”

Stiles goes still again.

“Shut up.”

“Stiles-”

“No, Derek, SHUT UP. You don’t get to talk about my mom, because you don’t KNOW my mom, because that lady? That’s NOT MY MOM,” Stiles shouts, yanking a clean t-shirt over his head as Derek moves towards him.

“She’s gonna hear you,” Derek hisses, clamping one hand over Stiles’ mouth. Stiles’ eyes narrow and he drags his tongue across Derek’s palm unrepentantly. Derek grimaces, but doesn’t move his hand.

“We don’t know what happens if they find out we know none of this is real. I’m not exactly looking to find out. So, fine, your mom doesn’t like me, and I don’t know your mom, because she isn’t, but that lady? She _thinks_ she’s your mom, and she’s _nice_ , so let’s just go downstairs and eat some goddamn pancakes and figure out how to _get the hell out of here_ before you have to watch her die!” Derek snarls, and yanks his hand away from Stiles’ face.

“You think,” Stiles’ swallows hard, “you think that’s what’s gonna happen? My mom, uhm,” Stiles closes his eyes, breathes deep, “My mom had cancer. It took _months_ , Derek.”

Derek doesn’t really have anything to say to that, so he just shrugs, bringing one hand up to rest on the nape of Stiles’ neck.

“Wait,” Stiles’ ducks out from underneath the hand that’s now essentially dragging him towards the door, “If you’ve been here for two days, and apparently you moved in while we were both _awake_ , then... where I have I been?”

“About that,” Derek coughs, “You were here when I woke up. Took me a little while to figure out it wasn’t _really_ you.”

“So, what, we have nightmare-verse doppelgangers that fill in for us when we’re busy living our actual lives?”

“Apparently.”

“How’d you know it was me when I woke up just now?” Stiles queries, eyes narrowing. If he didn’t know any better, he’d swear there’s a blush coloring the tips of Derek’s ears.

“You smelled different. Muted. Like you, but, not.”

“Uh-huh,” Stiles’ pretends to be satisfied with that answer, and Derek sees the set of his spine go rigid as the younger boy yanks open his bedroom door and careens down the stairs.

 

As it turns out, the pancakes are really good. Derek is almost impressed without averagely not normal Stiles seems, shoveling pancakes in his mouth, cracking jokes with his dad, and smiling wistfully at his mother.

The haunted look in his eyes gives him away, though.

“Sweetheart,” Marilynn grasps Stiles’ wrist gently as soon as the kitchen door swings shut behind the Sheriff on his way to the station, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Stiles grins broadly, but she’s not convinced, and her grip on his wrist tightens viciously. Derek lets out an involuntary snarl as Stiles flinches and tries to pull his arm free.

“You haven’t fooled me either, Hale,” she hisses, turning hard, whiskey golden eyes towards Derek, who inexplicably finds himself unable to leave his seat at the sun-soaked kitchen table, pinned by her glare.

“Stiles,” he grits, “Run.”

To his credit, Stiles doesn’t even try. Instead he cracks his mother over the head with a serving dish with a few stray pancakes still on it, and manages to free his wrist.

“Ah, ah, ah, sugar,” Marilynn laughs cruelly as Stiles scrambles around the table towards Derek, “Don’t move.”

He nearly topples out of his socks as his entire body goes stiff.

“Now, boys,” she settles back into her seat and picks up her fork, “I know you know none of this is _really_ happening.”

“No shit,” Stiles wheezes, and Derek wants to laugh at the motherly purse of Marilynn’s lips.

“Language, Stiles dear, I raised you better than that.”

“ _You_ most certainly did not,” Stiles’ spits back, and her eyes go hard again.

“Don’t test me, Stiles. I can make this worse.”

Stiles doesn’t make any reply, he just swallows around a clenched jaw and glares.

“As I was saying,” she continues, “I know you know that this isn’t real. But it’s going to _feel_ real. And Stiles, baby? It’s going to hurt.”

Derek snaps his teeth at her, eyes flashing a venomous red, but she merely waves a careless hand at him.

“Stop it. This isn’t about you this time, you’re just here to watch him get hurt.”

She sets her fork down primly on her now-empty plate and resettles herself in her chair like she’s waiting for something.

Derek doesn’t understand it at first, but he feels Stiles go even more unnaturally taut beside him when heavy dark circles start to form underneath Marilynn’s eyes. Slowly but surely her skin starts to look like worn paper, sagging from her bones. Her eyes sink deeper, and strands of hair start to drift from her scalp to the floor.

“Stiles, don’t look at her,” Derek commands when he realizes with a sick twist in his gut what’s happening. Stiles just whimpers, because he can’t look away.

“I’m just tired, munchkin, Mommy’s fine,” Marilynn offers in a sticky sweet voice, and if Derek could move he’d rip her throat out with his teeth, even as she gets thinner and more drawn by the moment.

“Mom, _please_ ,” Stiles whispers desperately, “Don’t, _don’t._ ”

Marilynn’s bright auburn hair sits heaped around the legs of her chair now, not a strand left on her head. An ugly red surgical scar wraps around the top of one ear and down to her neck before tracing back up the centerline of her skull.

“I’m just a little sick, is all, honey. The doctor’s will make me all better, and then I’ll get to come home. Don’t worry, Mommy’s going to be okay.”

Marilynn’s cheeks are hollow, her cheekbones practically digging through her skin as she sinks back in her chair. Her clothes hang off of her, stark collarbones and the vertebrae of her neck brittle and threatening to tear through. Her lips are chapped, painful sores obvious at the corners of her mouth.

“ _Stiles_ ,” she rasps, and Derek watches Stiles vibrate, still frozen behind his father’s chair at the head of the table, “Be a good boy for your dad, okay? Mommy loves you.”

The light behind those familiar looking eyes dims and flickers out, and they’re free. Stiles flails forwards towards her, but Derek catches him first.

“Mom!” Stiles cries, struggling against Derek’s grip as Derek cradles the back of his head and forces Stiles to look at him.

“ _Don’t_ look at her, Stiles. You know it’s not real, are you listening? Look at me,” Derek demands, giving Stiles a gentle shake until his eyes snap up towards Derek’s face, “Good. She’s not real, all right? Don’t look, don’t look.”

Derek guides him out through the kitchen door, Stiles’ face tucked securely against the thick muscle where Derek’s neck meets his shoulder. They’re two blocks down the street before Derek releases his hold on the back of Stiles’ head, but Stiles doesn’t move except to wrap one arm around Derek’s front and just hang there, letting Derek half-carry him.

“Where are we going?” Stiles’ asks disinterestedly, feet shuffling as concrete sidewalk gives way to gravel.

“I don’t know,” Derek admits, but he leads them towards the woods. It takes longer than Derek thinks it probably should to find a suitable fallen log, but he does, and lowers Stiles onto it before sinking down beside him.

“I’ll probably be really embarrassed about this later,” Stiles announces, letting his head loll back into Derek’s shoulder, “But right now I’m traumatized and you’re going to humor me.”

“Sure,” Derek grunts, and loops an arm around Stiles’ hips to keep him from tumbling backwards.

“It was like the world’s most awful flip book, or, or, the worst .gif you’d ever find on Reddit WTF. She even _said_ but it didn’t matter, and my wrist really hurts. I hit her with a plate, Derek!”

“Stiles?”

“Mm?”

“Shut up and go to sleep.”

“It’s the middle of the day!”

“Don’t be obstinate right now, Stiles. It’s the only way I know how to get back to where we belong,” Derek sighs, even as Stiles shifts against him in a vain attempt to get comfortable.

“You know,” Stiles yawns, “I think the two hours we’ve been here is the most I’ve ever heard you talk. Ever.”

“Stiles.”

“Shut up and go to sleep?”

“Mm.”

 

* * *

 

Stiles wakes up gasping and alone in the middle of the night, still in his computer chair with god knows how many pages of M’s typed out in front of him. With zero regard for the fact that his father is going to kill him when he wakes up, Stiles hauls ass out of the driveway and over to the train depot. He’s duly informed by an extremely sleepy and confused looking Isaac that Derek isn’t there, and thus he continues to haul ass until he grinds to a halt in a flurry of dried leaves and gravel in front of the Hale House.

“DEREK!”

“Yes, Stiles?” Derek melts out of the shadows on the porch in the picture of nonchalance and Stiles wants to punch him.

“My _mom_ , Derek,” he mumbles instead, pitching forward into a seat on the half-burned steps.

“I know,” Derek replies tightly, settling himself one stair up.

“I’m really fucking tired,” Stiles continues, letting his head rest against Derek’s knee.

“I know,” Derek repeats, trailing his fingers lightly over Stiles’ close cropped hair.

“I won’t let you go back without me again,” Stiles promises.

“I know.”

“I know you know, you jackass. Say something else.”

Derek doesn’t say anything else, just lets his hand drift to a stop and stay on Stiles’ head.

 

* * *

It’s the ass-crack of dawn when Stiles finally drags himself back to his Jeep and heads home without another word to Derek. They’re just not going to talk about this. It’s going to be what it is until it’s over and then Stiles will go back to being properly terrified of Derek and Derek will go back to being properly terrifying. There has to be a line of demarcation:  in the nightmare ‘verse it is them against everything else. In the real world it’s an ever shifting line-up of Pack members versus the crisis of the moment and more often than not Stiles and Derek can’t find a united front against whatever it is the Beacon Hills ragtag team of teenage werewolves and (varying degrees of) badass humans are fighting that week.

So Derek will say they probably won’t ever talk about it. And Stiles will say all right. And Stiles will say “My mom,” and Derek will say “I know,” and then Stiles will go home at the ass crack of dawn to find Scott waiting for him in his room.

Because this is Stiles’ life, and Scott is the best/worst best friend ever.  

“Dude,” Scott remarks appraisingly as Stiles shuffles into his room and practically wilts at the sight of the were-puppy lounging on his bed.

“Not right now, Scott,” Stiles grunts, shoving at him until there’s room to collapse at the end of his bed, knees bent and feet still on the floor, “I feel like I haven’t slept in a month.”

“Look it too.”

“Thanks.”

“What this time?” Scott asks for a moment, nudging Stiles’ shoulder with his knee.

“My mom,” Stiles grumbles and beside him Scott stiffens.

“ _Dude._ ”

“Dude,” Stiles nods sagely, and then heaves a deep sigh, “I love you and everything bro, but could you like, go pester Deaton to figure this shit out for me or something? I think I’m just gonna stare at the ceiling for a while.”

“Sure, man,” Scott agrees easily, peeling himself off Stiles mattress and hopping to his feet, “Text me if you go back to sleep, okay?”

“Yeah, man,” Stiles flutters a hand at him, but Scott still hesitates in the doorway.

“Derek-” he starts.

“Nope,” Stiles interrupts without looking away from the ceiling, popping the ‘p’ but completely lacking malice. He just can’t.

“But-”

“Scott. No.”

“All right,” Scott mutters darkly, and Stiles would laugh if he weren’t so fucking exhausted, because of course Scott would try to make this about Stiles’ Pack affiliations, and Stiles knows it’s only because Scott’s trying to look out for him, but really?

Really?

Derek may creep in and out of his window at completely inappropriate hours looking for research and Stiles might be completely inappropriately attracted to him in a _totally hopeless_ way, but Stiles is Scott’s Second. His _best friend_ , which is so clearly so much more.

And also this is totally not about any that. So, yeah, right now? Right now Scott can fuck right off, thanks.

Stiles listens to Scott tromp down the stairs and out the front door without a trace of stealth before he heaves himself to his feet and, in a fit of pique, starts tearing all the bedding off of his mattress. If he had claws, he’d shred it. As it stands, seeing as how Stiles is achingly human and all, the cool blue mass of cotton just ends up in a pathetic heap in the center of Stiles’ bedroom floor, crowned with pillows and Stiles’ grimy hoodie.

He curls up in the center of his bare mattress with his sneakers still on and digs his phone from the pocket of his jeans.

_To:  Alpha Sourwolf_

**_Ding ding. Ready for Round 4?_ **

His phone buzzes and chimes Sea Wolf beside his head a few moments later.

_From: Alpha Sourwolf_

**_Touch gloves, come out swinging._ **

Stiles huffs out something that might be a laugh, relocks his screen, and lets his eyes drift closed because he is frankly useless for anything else right now.

 

* * *

 

Stiles wakes up ten hours later with an absolutely disgusting cramp in his leg, on his bare mattress, with his phone losing its fucking shit right next to his ear.

“’Lo?” he croaks without looking at his Caller ID.

“ _Stiles_?” Stiles has never heard that tone in Erica’s voice before, and it makes him bolt upright and take note of his surroundings.

“Fuck. _Fuck!_ Where are you?” Stiles scrambles off his bed, getting his feet twisted in the pile of bedding and introducing his face rather rudely to the floor because he’s in the real world and Derek... Derek isn’t. He can feel it like a piece of himself has been detached, clicked out of place and cleanly removed to leave a peculiarly smooth-edged hole in his chest.

He promised, he fucking _promised_ , and now Derek is there by himself again and what the _shit,_ he went to bed why isn’t he _there?_

“The Hale house. Stiles,” Erica’s voice is trembling, “We’ve seen  it before, you know? Like, boom, insta-coma, but he’s not sleeping now. He’s... I’m not even sure, Stiles, but it’s bad. It’s really bad.”

“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” Stiles manages, torn between forcing down the panic welling in his throat at Erica’s shaky message, and wondering why the fuck there’s a stream of incredibly fine grained sand slipping out of his pillowcase. He hears Erica pull in another warbling breath, and has to cut her off.

“Ten minutes. Fifteen tops,” he assures her, and hangs up feeling like an asshole.

Stiles dials Scott immediately.

“Stiles? You goin’ back to sleep, man? I can’t believe you lasted this long,” Scott sounds vaguely impressed, and Stiles doesn’t have time to decide if he’s proud or annoyed.

“Come to my house, gather up some of the sand that’s on the floor, and bring it to Deaton,” Stiles snaps, lurching to his feet again and tearing out his bedroom door.

“...What?”

Stiles can see the confused scrunch of Scott’s nose, and again: he does not. Have time.

“Bedroom floor. Sand. Deaton. Now, Scott!” Stiles throws himself into his Jeep, for once thankful that he left his baby unlocked with the keys sitting in the ignition instead of bringing them inside like a responsible, well-rested human being.

“...Why?”

“Because Derek’s asleep and I’m not and there being _sand_ in my _pillowcase_ sounds a hell of a lot like a _very specific myth_ , does it not?”

“Yeah, right, of cou-”

Stiles disconnects and tosses his phone into the passenger seat as rubber squeals pitifully on asphalt and he burns out in the direction of the Hale house.

 

* * *

 

Derek answers Stiles’ text, and promptly does not go back to sleep. He works out instead; pull-ups and crunches and push-ups testing fatigued muscles until he’s shaking and sweating through his shirt. Then he goes for a run, circling the entirety of the Preserve nearly five times before dragging himself back to the clearing where the ruin of the house stands.

He’s not punishing Stiles, or anything. Derek’s perfectly aware that if it’s meant for both of them that the fun won’t start until he gets there. Hell, he spent two days hanging out with Mama Stilinski and Dream-Stiles eating junk food and waiting for the other shoe to drop. Surreal, sure, but not exactly damaging to his psyche.

And if it’s not meant for both of them, well then Stiles will be suffering through it alone regardless. So Derek mills around the half-burnt out kitchen and eats a protein bar, contemplating which one of the few, well-worn paperbacks he’s got stashed in his room he wants to page through again before giving into the unfamiliar, bone-deep tiredness threading through his body.

Granted, Derek doesn’t get the best sleep regardless of sci-fi shenanigans, so his basic operating level is somewhere between “mildly overtired” and “hollow-eyed” on a regular basis, but this is different. He hasn’t truly rested since this whole thing started, neither has Stiles, and it’s actually starting to worry him a little that neither of them have started hallucinating in the real world too.

Of course, Stiles could be hallucinating and just neglecting to mention it, but somehow Derek very sincerely doubts it. The kid never met a thought he didn’t want to share.

Derek finally settles on _Paradise Lost_ , and makes it about a third of the way through the epic poem before he can’t prop his eyelids open anymore and finally falls asleep nearly eight hours after he’d indulged Stiles’ boxing metaphor.

Whatever.

Stiles beat him out by two fucking days last time, and Derek is wholly cognizant of the fact that on the other side of this, Stilinski will never let him live it down, insolent little shit that he is.

 

* * *

Derek wakes up in an unidentifiable warehouse, arms pinned to the back of a solid stainless steel chair by a set of specially designed handcuffs coated in a wolfsbane tincture that immediately begins to burn his skin. The chair itself is welded to another piece of stainless steel, which is bolted to the concrete floor.

Stiles is nowhere to be seen, but on the wall opposite him the rest of his (on-again, off-again) Pack is strung up at ten foot intervals by their wrists, not a single set of feet coming close to scraping the floor.

Erica, Boyd, Isaac, Jackson, Lydia, Scott, even Danny and fucking _Peter_ , swaying with aching shoulders and lolling heads in various stages of consciousness.

“Derek?” Isaac whimpers, kicking his feet ineffectually as he twists against the manacles holding his arms. There’s a sickening pop, and his shoulder dislocates.

A faceless hunter appears from nowhere and Isaac earns himself a cattle prod to the kidneys for his efforts. Isaac’s broken, gagging howl is drowned out by Derek’s furious growl. He wrenches against the cuffs and is rewarded with the breaking of the skin around his wrists, wolfsbane beginning to leach into the now-open wounds.

“Lydia? Lydia, can you hear me? Lydia, _please_ ,” Jackson is begging even as Derek fights his bonds, his eyes huge and shining. There is a trickle of blood running from the corner of Lydia’s open mouth down her chin and dripping steadily onto the floor. She doesn’t reply.

“What the fuck,” Danny gasps, “What the _fuck_ is happening?”

His question is clearly for Jackson, but the blonde can’t answer, too busy staring at Lydia with undisguised anguish.

“Where’s Allison?” Scott is screaming, “What the _fuck_ did you do to her, Derek? We wouldn’t _be here_ if you hadn’t done something!”

“I didn’t,” Derek tries, but Scott’s having none of it.

“What about Stiles, Derek? Where is _he?_ ” Scott roars back, and the knowledge that he has absolutely no idea makes Derek’s blood run cold.

“I don’t know,” he admits, and Peter scoffs.

“Of course you don’t, nephew, because your being Alpha is a disgrace to the name Hale,” he taunts, and Derek has no words to disagree.

Only Boyd and Erica are silent, and Derek knows exactly why:  they’ve been here before, and they know the struggle isn’t worth the wasted energy.

The blood stops dripping from Lydia’s mouth, and Jackson bellows a noise Derek’s never heard as her presence slips from the back of his mind. The faceless hunter, who thus far has been entertaining himself with Isaac, rolls his eyes at the sound. A gun appears from the waistband of his jeans and he ends Jackson’s string of agonized screeches with the silenced pop of an automatic weapon. Derek can smell the wolfsbane from fifty feet, and Jackson’s chin drops against the bullet hole in his chest.

“Oh, my God,” Danny squeezes his eyes shut tightly, “No, no, no, no.”

The litany continues until the hunter hits him with the cattle prod and he, mercifully, looses consciousness.

The cuffs are still slicing into the skin of Derek’s wrists and he can feel the inky black sickness seeping up his arms, but he can’t bring himself to stop struggling.

Isaac is still apparently the hunters favorite plaything, but one too-sharp jab at his chest with the prod and Derek can no longer feel him.

Erica and Boyd cry out at that, simultaneous, and then fall silent with two more pops from the silenced weapon. Derek slumps in the chair, virtually Pack-less.

“An Alpha without a Pack is no better than an Omega,” Peter observes bitterly, and from a darkened corner Derek hadn’t noticed, there is a soft, manic giggle.

All eyes snap towards the sound, and Stiles steps out of the shadows with a twisted leer on his face.

“Excellent point, Peter. How _are_ you feeling, Derek?” Stiles asks conversationally. Derek blinks at him, mouth agape. Why couldn’t he smell him, sense him, _anything_? Stiles is Pack. The wall is the last place Derek _wants him_ , but that’s where he should be.

“ _Stiles_?” Scott whispers, horrified.

“Oh, for fucks sake, Scott, shut up for _once_ ,” Stiles snaps, making a dismissive gesture at the faceless hunter, who promptly puts a bullet in Scott’s throat.

Derek moans. Stiles’ scent is still conspicuously absent, and Derek reassures himself:  it’s not real.

“Well, that is more like it,” Stiles nods, satisfied, and turns his attention to Peter while slipping a kitchen torch from the back pocket of his jeans. Peter goes very, very still.

“Third time’s a charm, right?” Stiles’ leer widens unbearably, and sets the hem of Peter’s pants alight. The fabric goes up impossibly quickly, and Peter never makes a sound before he too vanishes from Derek’s perception. Apart from Scott’s wheezing, labored breathing and the steadily slowing beat of Danny’s heart, Derek is alone.

“It’s not real,” Derek murmurs to himself, tucking his chin into the hollow where his collarbones meet and locking his eyes closed, “It’s not real, it’s not real, it’s not real.”

“Oh, Sourwolf,” Stiles sighs softly, a saddened note in his tone making Derek’s eyes snap open again. Two slim fingers lift his chin, and Derek sees the glint of a long dagger appear from the sleeve of Stiles’ red hoodie.

“It is very, very real,” Stiles murmurs, pressing a chaste kiss to the corner of Derek’s mouth and the scent of Ivory soap, grass, honey, and warm rain overwhelm his nose. Derek breathes in _Stiles_ and hardly notices the boy slipping the blade smoothly in the space between his third and forth ribs. Derek barely has time to register the burn of wolfsbane before it’s piercing his heart.

 

* * *

 

Stiles tumbles into Derek’s bedroom at the Hale house, shoving Isaac, Erica and Boyd out of his way and wrenching the pillow out from beneath Derek’s writhing form. He yanks the pillow free of the case, and a handful of sand so fine it could be dust scatters across the floor. In what feels like the same second, Derek gasps awake with one hand pressed against his ribs.

“Derek?” Isaac offers tentatively after a wrought moment of ragged breathing and unsure glances. Derek’s eyes break away from their unfocused glare at the far wall to sweep across the three betas surrounding his bed, looking wary.

And then Derek standing, one hand on the back of Isaac’s neck, another on Boyd’s shoulder, and Erica tucked beneath his chin, drawing them all in. Derek _shudders,_ and the betas nestle hopelessly closer, Erica and Isaac whining low in their throats.

“’S’all right,” Derek slurs, “’M fine.”

Stiles hangs back, fingers tangled in the fabric of the pillowcase, unsure of his place but decidedly unwilling to leave.

“Call Jackson and Scott,” Derek murmurs to Boyd after several long minutes, “Make sure they’re all right, ask about Danny and Lydia. Isaac, Erica, find Peter. Please,” he tacks on when Erica looks distinctly mutinous.

“Derek,” Isaac ventures, “What hap-”

Derek shakes his head sharply, eyes flashing red for a split second, and they disperse.

Stiles coughs lightly as Boyd pulls the door closed gently. Derek flinches.

“I, uhm, I think-” Stiles starts, because they might not talk about this, but he has a hunch. A strong one. More of a theory.

“Get out,” Derek growls, eyes red again, claws flexing against his palms.

“But I-” Stiles tries again, because he knows what this is. He has no idea _why_ , or _how_ , not yet, but he’s got the what. Mostly.

“Get **OUT!** ” Derek roars, because it wasn’t real, he knows it wasn’t, but it doesn’t _matter_ because all he can see is Stiles honey-whiskey eyes dancing with mirth and glittering with contentment as he slid a knife into Derek’s chest. Stiles’ cupids bow mouth twisting in glee at Derek’s blood coating his hand and wrist, staining the cuff of his hoodie even darker.

Stiles’ swift wave of fear is acrid like burnt hair, but it does nothing to cover the clean skin and grass stains and honeyed oats and springtime scent that is Stiles. The burning sensation under his ribs starts all over again as Stiles flees, making Derek pant until he’s bent double, gagging with his arms wrapped tight around himself.

 

* * *

 

“The Sandman,” Stiles repeats, flat.

“For lack of a better moniker, yes,” Deaton sighs, rubbing another pinch of the grit Scott had collected from Stiles’ floor between his thumb and forefinger.

“So... the guy that’s supposed to bring sweet dreams to small children is actually a _supremely_ effective, utterly twisted version of the company from _Monsters, Inc._?” Stiles asks, still incredulous.

“It’s practically unheard of for the energy from the sand to manifest itself in this way, but I suppose for people who have experienced such intense traumas, it creates more energy to play upon negative emotions rather than positive ones,” Deaton answers evenly, and Stiles slumps on his stool.

“Awesome. Still doesn’t explain why Derek and I ended up on the same screwed up plane of nightmare existence. Or why it still worked even when we weren’t sleeping in our beds,” Stiles points out, and Deaton makes a gesture as close to a shrug as he is capable of producing.

“I can only theorize at the answers to those questions, Stiles. I would imagine that the influence of the sand is far-reaching enough that as long as it remains in the place you consider your bed, regardless of where you’re actually sleeping, it will effect you. As for what you’re calling the ‘nightmare plane-’”

“Nightmare plane. Nightmare ‘verse. Nightmare land. Bizarro carnival of terror. Treehouse of Horror. Whatever,” Stiles interrupts.

“The nightmare plane,” Deaton continues as though Stiles hadn’t spoken, “The energy emitted by an Alpha werewolf would have been extremely tempting to a spirit such as the Sandman. I would hazard a guess that you were involved to inspire terror in Derek in a number of creative ways, and for Derek to inspire terror in you.”

“Like a feedback loop?” Stiles ventures, and Deaton nods again.

“Awesome. Right. So how do we kill it?” Stiles demands, and the vet half-smiles.

“Stiles, a spirit such as the Sandman has existed since the dawn of human consciousness. The energy of dreams fuels its existence, making it essentially a being _of_ energy, intangible for all intents and purposes. You can’t just kill it,” Deaton explains, tone tinged with amusement.

“So, what, it’s like some fourth dimension pre-evolved orb of light or some shit? Then how does it stuff sand in the pillowcases of unsuspecting victims? Why does it even _need_ the sand?” Stiles is getting increasingly hysterical, he can hear it in his own voice, but it’s not _fair._ If he can’t just go and kill it, how the hell is he supposed to prove that he didn’t actually do whatever the hell god-fucking-awful thing Derek can’t get over seeing him do?

“Mystery of the universe, Stiles,” Deaton’s patience is obviously wearing thin, but Stiles has one more question.

“So, if getting rid of the sand gets rid of the dreams, how do we make sure it doesn’t come back?”

“Wash your bedding regularly.”

“ _Awesome._ ”

 

* * *

 

Stiles barely manages to stay awake on the drive back from Deaton’s, where he had fled to after hauling ass out of Derek’s house. He parks the Jeep as crookedly as he ever has in his driveway, and passes out on his bed for another fifteen hours without bothering to pick up the bedding from the floor. Or take off his shoes.

Stiles awakens the next morning to the mattress beside his head dipping, and he jolts awake.

“Easy, kid, easy,” the Sheriff lays a gentle hand on Stiles’ shoulder, steadying him.

“H-hey, Dad,” Stiles mumbles, flopping back down against his bare mattress.

“Care to tell me what this is all about?” John gestures at the tangled mass of fabric on the floor. Stiles huffs.

“Night terrors.”

“And why you’re sleeping in jeans, sneakers, and a hoodie?” John continues, one eyebrow arched.

“I... I’ve had a rough couple weeks, sleep-wise. When I finally got tired last night, I just couldn’t be bothered,” Stiles offers, and it isn’t even really a lie.

“Well, you better get the schedule back on track, school’s starting in a few weeks,” his father points out, making Stiles groan.

“Don’t remind me.”

“No time like the present, son. It’s just after 7, and I’ve got to head to work soon. Why don’t you get up and make me a nice, healthy breakfast?” It is phrased as a suggestion. It is not one.

“Uuuugh,” Stiles rolls onto his stomach and discovers that it’s nearly impossible to bury your face in the silky-scratch of synthetic mattress fabric and breathe at the same time, “Fiiiine. Shower first. Down in fifteen.”

“That’s the spirit,” John claps him on the shoulder, and skirts the mess on the floor on his way out, “Get this cleaned up, too.”

Stiles grunts at him, but rolls out of bed anyway.

 

* * *

 

He makes it almost three hours after his father leaves for work before he officially cannot putter around the house anymore, and gets in the Jeep with the distinct goal of driving around until his ass goes numb.

His brain is an absolute traitor to the cause of keeping him alive, however, because it brings him on near-autopilot to the train depot.

No time like the present, right? Besides, Derek’s Camaro is outside, and there’s no way Derek doesn’t know he’s here. Still, it takes him a solid five minutes before  he manages to make his way up to the door. He even knocks, for Christ’s sake, although he doesn’t receive an answer and goes inside anyway.

“Derek?” he calls quietly, “You here?”

“Go _home_ , Stiles,” Derek’s disembodied voice snaps from a far, darkened corner.

“We need to talk,” Stiles retorts, sounding braver than he feels.

“We really don’t. Go home,” Derek repeats, his voice like tires on gravel.

“I watched Allison Argent string you up from a tree branch and order her father to cut you in half. He did. I buried you in Laura’s grave. I laid out a stone spiral, broke into their house, and killed them both,” Stiles tells him by way of reply, and finds himself pinned against the corrugated steel wall of the building.

“ _What._ ”

“In the first dream,” Stiles explains, sort of amazed at  his own light tone, even with Derek’s hands fisted into the lapels of his over shirt, “Well. Nightmare, as it were.”

Derek just stares at him, but doesn’t relinquish his grip.

“Well, come on, dude. It’s sharing and caring time. Spill it,” Stiles needles. Derek glowers.

“I told you mine, you tell me yours,” Stiles grins impishly, and wonders when the eyebrows of doom stopped working on him. Probably about the same time as the wall slamming became endearing, and Derek’s general aura of “James Dean badass in a sleek car and a leather jacket” started coming across as more of an adorable schtick than an actual life plan.

So about the time he spent four or five hours with his fingers tangled in Derek’s hair after watching the Hale house burn down.

“You-” Derek starts, and then looks away, fingers going lax, “You buried me under a spiral?”

“I like that you focus on that, rather than the part where I shot the love of my best friend’s life, and also her father. You know. The famous werewolf hunters. Granted, it was a dream, but still. Pret-ty coldblooded shit, that I did. For you,” Stiles muses, and swears the corners of Derek’s mouth tick up for a half-second.

Seriously. His life. What even.

“Derek,” Stiles sighs, reaching up to brush a thumb along the edge of Derek’s jaw, “What’d I do?”

“I broke your heart, but you wouldn’t give up on the Pack, so the Alphas killed you anyway,” Derek informs him instead, and Stiles’ throat goes dry.

“And you?” he rasps, and Derek flashes that oh so false, heartbreaking smile.

“I ran.”

Stiles laughs, loud and brash and unapologetic.

“Derek, we both know that if anybody on this particular island of misfit toys turned up dead, you would go straight up Azrael on... whomever you needed to. You might run first,” Stiles concedes, “But you’d come back.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I really do.”

“Stiles,” Derek huffs, like Stiles is the one being difficult.

“Just tell me what I did, Derek, so we can move on. Please,” Stiles drags a thumb down Derek’s jaw again, dragging against the stubble and coming to rest at his chin with the pad of his finger just brushing the edge of Derek’s lower lip.

“You,” Derek’s eyes slide away, Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows, “I watched you kill _all of us._ Isaac, Erica, and Boyd. Jackson, Lydia, even Danny. Peter. _Scott._ Me.”

Stiles’ breath comes ragged and uneven, his hand sliding away from Derek’s mouth as Derek turns his face away, half-hiding in Stiles’ neck.

Stiles can barely hear him, the buzzing in his ears is so loud.

“I couldn’t smell you, all the times it wasn’t really you. Or, I could, but only if you were close and even then it wasn’t the same. Dull. I saw it, but I couldn’t smell you at all. So it wasn’t real, I could- It wasn’t real. But you got so close, called me Sourwolf, said it was real. Kissed me. And I could smell you, everywhere, so strongly. It was real, for me, then,” Derek finishes in stilted, broken sentences, and Stiles is frozen against the metal wall with his arms hanging limply at his sides. The silence stretches out between them, but Derek doesn’t move back; just lets his head hang above Stiles’ shoulder with the ends of his hair tickling Stiles’ jaw and ear.

“I- I didn’t, really,” Stiles manages finally, because he _didn’t._ He wouldn’t, couldn’t, won’t, can’t. And it fucking hurts to hear Derek accuse him of it, to know that Derek had to watch it happen alone because Stiles had a tantrum involving his bed sheets.

“I know. It just...”

“Yeah.”

The silence unfolds again, and then Stiles has to ask, because he has to know.

“Do you trust me, Derek?”

It sounds like it costs Derek something to say it, but he does it anyway.

“Yeah, Stiles. I trust you.”

 


End file.
